


Snags

by Zeke Black (istia)



Series: Snags [1]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, Old West, POV Chris Larabee, POV Vin Tanner, Zine: Diverse Doings 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-07-01
Updated: 2001-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:09:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/Zeke%20Black
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Chris leaves town and shows no sign of returning, Vin goes to look for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snags

The thunderstorm that morning, short but fierce, had brought in its wake a deluge of heavy rain. The street in the nondescript settlement was mud at the edges with pools in the central ruts and dips. The place was smaller than Four Corners by a hundred people or so at least, and rougher. More like Four Corners had been when Vin Tanner had first ridden in going on a year and a half ago. He had never before stayed for such a long time in one place. Sometimes he thought that might be the problem with all of them, seven men who had mostly drifted in their lives still getting used to settling down. Hard to say how long it would continue with the group of them sticking around as regulators together; it seemed to be a by-the-week thing, which was fine by him. When the drift started, he'd just go with it. There were plenty more places for him to see that he hadn't yet seen. Still a lot of wide-open space for a man to wander, if he had the inclination.

But if the drift had already begun, then he wanted to know and get on with it. More than three weeks had passed now, with none of them knowing just what was happening or might happen. Anyway, he couldn't deny he was somewhat worried. It wasn't like Chris just to up and leave like that, without a word about his plans beyond the immediate. Chris took the peacekeeping job in Four Corners seriously. Which wasn't to say a man like Chris Larabee couldn't look out for himself in most situations, but that gunslinger's reputation of his could attract as much trouble as it held off. Always some new fool around who was itching to show what a man he was by trying to out-draw a legend, and not all of them came alone, or from the front. Though the first thing was to see if Chris was still here at all.

He stopped in front of the sheriff's office, dismounting into squelching mud. He hitched his horse and went inside. The place smelled like most jails, of piss and stew and old sweat. The two cells were empty, their doors hanging open. A tough-looking, black-bearded man a few years older than Chris looked up from some writing he was doing at the desk and waited with the quiet watchfulness of a man who was ready for trouble at all times. One hand dropped to rest on the butt of the Scofield revolver in his holster, not in a threatening way, just indicating alertness.

Vin left his coat hanging down over his mare's leg in the belt holster and held out his hand. "Vin Tanner. I'm in from Four Corners, part of the law over there."

The sheriff scrutinized him before relaxing sufficiently to take his hand. His grip was firm. "Jeb Parsons. Sheriff. We seem to be popular with you fellas from Four Corners just lately; you're the second one that's come visiting. Something I oughta know about going on?"

Vin rested his hands on the front of his gunbelt in a relaxed posture and shook his head. "Nope. I was just out this way and thought I'd check and see how much longer Chris intended staying. That is, if he's still here?"

The sheriff smiled; it wasn't a pleasant look. "Oh, he's here. I been wondering myself if he has any intention of moving on, or if I'll eventually have to suggest he do it. It ain't a light decision, considering it's Chris Larabee and all. Not a man to tangle with lightly, I reckon--at least if you go by reputation."

"He been giving you trouble?"

The sheriff picked up a pencil and twirled it between his fingers, looking thoughtful. "Nothing serious. Had to put him in the cells twice, just overnight."

"Drunk and disorderly?"

"Yup." Parsons looked up at him intently.

Vin nodded, hiding his dismay, trying to treat it like a casual matter. "He can be an ornery drunk on occasion."

He wasn't going to get any more information from Parsons without having to reveal more than he wanted. "Happen to know where I might find 'im?"

Parsons' eyes were narrowed and sharp, but he copied Vin's casual tone. "Usually find him in one of three places: the saloon, with some whore, or passed out drunk somewheres. Your guess is as good as mine which it'll be at mid-afternoon."

Vin touched two fingers to his hat with a smile and moved toward the door. He could feel the sheriff's eyes boring into his back and was glad to shut the door behind himself. Well, at least he knew Chris was still here. Livery first, settle his horse, then try the saloons.

Mossy Joe's was bigger than the saloon they favored in Four Corners, but rougher and dirtier. There was no roulette wheel or flocked wallpaper or net curtains covering the grimy windows. No tables, either, except a scattering of poker ones. He leaned against the bar and flipped a coin to the keep for a glass of Red-Eye. He took his time sipping and watching, before turning to face the keep.

"I'm looking for Chris Larabee. Know where I might find 'im?"

The man looked nervous; Chris must be at less than his charming best these days. Vin sighed, and took another sip, keeping eye contact with the keep.

"He ain't here."

Vin grinned, shaking his head. "Reckon I figured that one out for myself. Someplace else round these parts that he prefers to do his drinking, or is he likely to turn up here later?"

The man rubbed a cloth over the surface of the pitted oak bar. "Turns up here most evenings. I can't swear to nothing, though; he goes his own way."

Yeah, don't he just. Vin nodded to the keep with an affable smile and stepped outside. He stood on the boardwalk looking up and down the short main street. Peeling clapboard buildings, cracked windows, and bullet-scored signs all added up to an unexciting place still scrabbling to pull itself out of the mud and sand and make something of itself. Good rangeland to the northwest had attracted ranchers, and the town had sprouted like a bump of fungus on a healthy tree that might one day become remarkable in itself, but was presently still just an ugly growth on the land. What there could be to keep a man here for going on three weeks was hard to figure.

Though there was the strong possibility it wasn't what this place offered that was keeping Chris here, but what it didn't.

He was back in the saloon by nightfall. He'd spent time in the livery scrubbing down his horse, then hit the bath house for himself. After two days of traveling through rain and windstorms, it had felt wonderful to hunker down in a tub of hot water. A good brushing had removed the worst of the dried mud from his buckskin coat and he felt clean enough pulling his mud-splashed pants on over fresh longjohns from his saddlebag. He didn't bother looking for a place to bed down for the night. The sky looked to be clearing; he'd find someplace.

He sat in on a few hands of poker, keeping an eye on the door. He'd reached the point of half-thinking Chris wasn't going to show when he heard the distinctive clink of the chains and deep-cut rowels on Chris's Spanish-style spurs, and he looked up to see his quarry walking inside. Chris didn't look around. He walked to the bar, got a bottle, turned, and walked straight to the table, seating himself in a chair opposite Vin. Chris sloshed whiskey into a glass, and shoved the bottle sharply across the table. Vin caught it just before it toppled over. He lifted it and filled his glass.

"What's the stake?" Chris's voice was a raspy growl that matched the rough look of the rest of him.

In the next three hours, the two of them outlasted the other players, made a small profit, and finished off the bottle, Chris accounting for a good two-thirds. When they were alone at the table, pretending they were still playing cards, Vin let himself look at his friend directly for the first time.

Unshaven and unwashed, Chris wasn't the prettiest sight. He looked every inch the forty-year-old, tough-as-nails gunslinger who'd been to hell and barely made it back that he was. The lines around his mouth and eyes were graven deeper than Vin had ever seen them before, and made him wonder how such a change could have happened in so short a time. The lines matched the black circles marking Chris's eyes and the way his lips pressed hard together around one cheroot after another the whole evening long. Smoke wreathed his head and made his eyes narrow. His hair was greasy and slicked back against his head. Seemed like what he looked like wasn't of much interest to Chris right at the moment.

Chris was still alert to everything going on around him, though, even when his hand got a shade unsteady with the bottle. His eyes were as sharp as Nathan's knives when they finally met Vin's. "Got something on your mind?"

Vin discarded a card at random from his hand and drew another. He looked back up into the eyes, aware of the unwavering gaze as Chris lifted the cheroot from between his lips, took a slug of whiskey, and replaced the cheroot. The narrowed green eyes went on watching him.

"Just wondering what the attraction is round here to keep you away for so long."

"Ain't been all that long."

"We expected you back in five days or so. It's going on three weeks, and no word. Some of us got a mite worried."

A slight, unamused smile touched the fine-cut mouth. "You?"

"Yeah, me, for one. JD. Mary's been worrying that you mighta got into some trouble, 'specially when you never bothered to answer the telegrams she sent. Nathan's been getting concerned whether you intended to come back or not."

The silence lasted for three draws on the cheroot.

"Buck?"

Vin shrugged. "He just said you're like to go off like this and you'd come back when you were ready. Didn't reckon there was any point trying to drag you back; said attempting to do that in the past never got him nothing but a busted nose."

The smile deepened with a mean kind of amusement. Two more draws on the cheroot and another hand was played and folded in silence.

"Josiah?"

He allowed a grin of his own to curl his mouth. "Josiah reckons you're wrestling with your own crows and it's best to leave you be."

The mean look gentled a little as Chris shook his head. "Josiah and his damn crows."

"Yeah."

Chris fetched another bottle from the bar. He sloshed golden liquid into both their glasses. Vin became aware of the sheriff leaning on the bar and watching them. Their eyes met, but Parsons didn't look away.

"So, the town's worrying about me, but only you decided to come find me."

"Dunno as I came because I was worried about you. Came mostly to see what your intentions are."

Chris raised an eyebrow at him.

"Thought the trip here was just to deliver them warrant papers the Judge needed dropping off. Two day's ride either way, a day's rest, five, maybe six days total. It's been three times that long."

Chris looked with lazy challenge into his eyes, like a bobcat sporting with its prey.

"Maybe I decided to take a vacation."

So that's how the game was going to be played. He knocked back the shot and poured himself another, feeling anger rising inside him.

"This sudden hankering after a vacation have anything to do with the black eye Ezra had the morning you left?"

He wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen with his own eyes Chris's hand twitch toward his gun.

"You gonna draw on me?"

In the background, he could see the watchful Parsons straighten, his own hand going to rest on his gun butt.

In a moment, the searing passion in Chris's eyes faded away, leaving tiredness and cold distance behind. Chris's hand lifted to the table and closed around his glass, though he didn't drink. The sheriff's tense stance relaxed again to a lean against the bar.

The silence this time lasted an entire cheroot. That's how long Vin's patience held out. He reckoned that if he waited on Chris, he'd be waiting until he heard the final trumpets.

"You don't want to talk about it, fine. Way I see it, you lost your temper. Maybe you were drunk at the time; maybe you weren't. Wasn't the first time and won't be the last."

"That what he tell you?"

"Nope. Told JD when he tried to ask about his eye that a gentleman never inquires into another man's personal business, then he pretty much shut up. For someone who gabs nonstop, he sure can keep quiet when he wants to. Don't take a genius to work out what happened, though--unless you're gonna tell me something different?"

He waited through another silence, then shrugged, irritated. Waste of a trip; waste of effort. Though at least he'd made sure Chris was all right. Might not stay that way for long the way he was going, but at least he knew Chris was staying away out of choice, not because of some trouble he'd found.

"Reckon it's between you and Ezra, whatever happened. But if you ain't intending to come back, then I figure I got a right to know so I can make my own plans. Reckon the same's true for the rest of them, too. We signed on to protect the town. If that's changed, then maybe we'll all want to go our own ways. The Judge's got a right to know, too, if you ain't coming back, you being in charge and all and giving him your word."

No response. Chris stared across the dim-lit, smoky room. His eyes were unreadable. Vin flipped cards in a random pattern on the dirty, baize-covered table, thinking about Ezra's smooth, clever hands working the cards in a way nobody could match. It was hardly surprising those two ignited firerockets together sometimes. Ezra had probably asked for it, whatever had happened; he never would control his mouth when it was a matter of setting Chris off. All in all, it might have been lucky for everyone that Chris had ridden away before his temper did worse damage--if the worst hadn't already been done.

He tossed the cards away and swallowed the last of the whiskey in his glass. He stood and looked down at Chris. The man was tired; that was obvious. Tired and drawn and plainly miserable. Fool. And just like a coyote with its leg caught in a trap, he'd bite off your hand if you tried to help.

"I'll be leaving at dawn." He spoke to the set profile of the man he'd considered to be his closest friend. "If you don't want to come back, I expect I'll be moving on soon. Never intended to stay so long in one place, anyhow."

Chris turned his head and looked up at him, but his eyes were still unreadable. Vin thought with a pang of the immediate connection they'd made together in the street the first time they'd seen each other, the way their eyes had met and they'd instantly felt like they were bonded. He'd felt that way, anyhow, and he would have sworn on his honor as a Tanner that Chris had felt the same. And all these months that had passed since that first meeting had done nothing but deepen that bond. Now, though, Chris was blank and shut away inside himself, and he couldn't sense anything in Chris he could grab hold of, nothing for him to hang onto. It was like trying to get a grip on a block of ice. He felt a painful sense of loss.

He started to turn away, but stopped. He looked back at Chris, who was now staring down at the table, remote and hard-faced.

"Dunno if you care, but Ezra's gone, too. He left ten days after you did. Nobody knows where."

The face he was watching didn't change expression, the eyes didn't blink, the body didn't move a muscle. He shrugged, turned on his heel, and walked out.

:::::::

Dawn came late during these last days of fall. A chill in the air made Chris glad of the warmth in the striped serape Josiah had given him months previously. At least it wasn't raining, though from the look of the clouds scudding across the sky, it might not stay that way for long. He wasn't looking forward to two days on the trail. Funny how he'd been putting off returning to Four Corners for all these days, and now he just wished it could be done and he were...home.

Of course, the ache in his head wasn't going to help the day pass pleasantly. He was getting too damned old to carry on like this, with too much whiskey and smoking until his voice was hoarse and way too many interchangeable whores. He'd sown his oats in his youth and settled down with Sarah while he was still in his twenties, content to be a husband and father and rancher, the two of them building up a good life together. Maybe a tad too much restlessness left in him that took him off on occasional trips with Buck, but not the hellraising they'd done before Sarah had agreed to marry him and settle him down. But then Sarah and the boy were taken from him and here he was in his forties raising hell all over again, and most of it in his own head.

Vin ambled into the livery just as he was tightening the cinch on his black. Vin nodded, but didn't say anything. He'd rarely heard Vin talk as much as he had the night before. Vin was restful, peaceful company for the most part, and valued for it beyond saying, which was all right since they didn't usually need to speak to get their points across.

Unlike with some people.

He had never had any problem talking things through with Sarah, or saying what was necessary. Or even just knowing when something was necessary to say.

But Sarah was the past, and Vin and Four Corners and the life he'd created over the past eighteen months was the present. He swung up into the saddle and waited in the corral until Vin joined him on his white-blazed black, and they rode into the street together. Just a little dirt town, as faceless as the countless others he'd drifted through in the years following Sarah's death, as faceless as the countless whores he'd taken to his bed. He saw the sheriff leaning against a post on the boardwalk outside the jail. He met cool eyes and exchanged nods with the man as they rode past; Vin touched his hat. Parsons was a good man, and a strong-willed one. He might help turn this dirt town into something that could be a proper home for people, a place worth protecting and looking after and able to attract to it people decent enough to respect.

But he had that already elsewhere, and Four Corners was what it was today partly because of his efforts and Vin's and the others'.

The morning passed in companionable silence as they rode. A freshening breeze cleared the cobwebs out of his brain and dulled the headache. The rain held off, and the air slowly acquired a drier feel as they headed south. They stopped at midday to rest the horses and have a feed, squatting rather than sitting on dampish ground underneath a stand of Ponderosa pines as they munched squashed sandwiches he'd collected from the bar. The sandwiches all managed to taste of the oilskin in which they were wrapped, and grit from the coarse bread crunched between his teeth. A slice of chicken pie from the restaurant in Four Corners would hit the spot right about now.

The first shot clipped the branch above his head and dropped needles into his salt beef sandwich. Startled for a moment, he found his body moving before his brain caught up, and he was slamming into squishy, dark humus that wafted the scent of rotting vegetation into his nostrils as he disturbed it before he realized what he was doing. By the time the second shot sprinkled him with bark slivers, he was well hidden, with Vin lying nearby fumbling his spy glass out of the big pocket in his coat. Vin surveyed the area and handed him the glass, nodding to a copse of trees to the north-east.

"Looks like there's only two. I'll get round their backsides."

Before Vin could move, a voice shouted, "Larabee! Chris Larabee! I know that's you!"

"Yeah? Who the hell are you?"

"My name's Switchpaw Guffins, and I'm calling you out, Larabee!"

He looked at Vin, who mouthed, "Switchpaw Guffins?"

Chris grinned and shook his head. His life was fucking loco. There was no getting around that fact. Vin slithered off to his right, and he set about the task of keeping the attention of the gunmen focused on himself.

"This your idea of calling a man out? Ambush him?"

"I coulda shot you, but I didn't. Or I coulda shot your friend. But I didn't. I'm calling you out, Larabee."

"Why the hell would you want to call me out? I ain't never met any Switchpaw Guffins. I have a sneaking idea I'd've remembered if I had."

"Oh, you'd've remembered all right because you'd be dead. Lots of people have heard of me, and lots more are gonna know my name once I kill the great Chris Larabee in a fair draw. So you come out and meet me, or I might have to shoot you in the back and cart your body into town and show everyone what a lily-livered coward the great Chris Larabee really was."

"Son, you are beginning to annoy me. You have got me wet and dirty and dropped pine needles in my lunch. I'm just about ready to come out and shoot you just for the annoyance. But I'm gonna give you one chance to ride away. I suggest you take that chance right now."

"You are a coward, Larabee! You're a has-been, old man. I been watching you in town the last few weeks. Liquored up all the time, too drunk even to get it up with some of them whores you were with. I seen what you're really like; you ain't got nothing left. But your name's still good to get me a legend as the man who killed Chris Larabee, and that's what's gonna happen, one way or another."

Chris kept his temper to a slow burn. Vin would be in position by now. Just deal with this trash and they could get on their way.

He holstered his gun and stood up cautiously. In the opposite stand of trees, he could see movement and a body pulling itself upright. He also caught another movement to his left and had his gun in his hand and was firing as soon as his eyes registered the Spencer carbine pointing at him from the cover of the bush a few yards to Guffins' right. The simultaneous retorts of two guns, a yelp, a crash in the bush, a burning sensation on his left arm, and a sharp voice calling "Tom!" all registered at once on his senses.

After which, peace fell once more on the wooded glade.

"Shit! That son of a bitch shot me!"

There wasn't much blood apparent on his arm, most of it being absorbed by the black cloth of his torn sleeve, but it hurt bitching bad enough. Damn flesh wounds always hurt the worst. He holstered his Colt and strode across the small meadow to the shadow of the other tree line. Vin had disarmed Guffins and had him on his knees, with a hand gripping the fellow's collar. The other idiot, the one who had been sneaking in the bushes with the rifle, was still rolling on the ground moaning and clutching his hand, which was a bloody mess with a bullet hole ripped through the palm. A .45 slug does a lot of damage to a complex area like a hand, with its skein of delicate flesh holding together a mass of tendons and tiny bones. Even a doctor probably wouldn't be able to fix that damage adequately; if that dirt town even had a doctor, for that matter.

He turned his attention to the loud-mouthed one in Vin's grip. "Goddammit, he's nothing but a fucking kid."

"Yup."

"I ain't no kid! I've shot a bunch of men and--"

Chris backhanded the boy with all the vicious temper that had built up in him and watched with satisfaction as Vin let go of the collar in time to let the bastard crash to the ground, clutching his nose. He was tempted to put a bullet in the kid just for the aggravation; he couldn't think of any earthly reason why the little shit should get out of this situation scot-free. He looked at Vin, and saw the amusement in his friend's blue eyes as he watched Chris weigh temper against lawman's restraints. Vin gave him a grin and moved away to haul the other one to his knees. Taking the wildrag from around his neck, Vin tied it around the bleeding hand, pulling it tight from need, not meanness. Vin didn't have that kind of meanness in him.

Chris sighed. Ah, hell, the little bastard wasn't worth the price of a bullet.

He shook his aching hand to ease the pain in it from having made contact with the kid's beak, and gathered the weapons. Guffins wore a double holster like JD's. What was with youngsters these days? It wasn't how many guns you toted; it was how well you used them. Buck had been drumming that into JD's head since the first day they'd met, but at least JD had the brains to listen and learn. Not that he was ever likely to give up his beloved twin Lightnings, but at least they were good for more than show and making the kid feel tough. A howl drew his eyes back to Vin and his charge.

"Stop your caterwauling; you'll survive." Vin's voice was calm.

Vin's movements were equally calm and controlled as he knotted a rope from one of the kids' horses back in the trees around the wounded boy's wrists. He pulled it tight enough to keep him from causing any more trouble, but not so tight that it cut off circulation or caused more than necessary pain to the shattered hand. Vin moved over to Guffins and squatted. When he pulled the hands away from the boy's face, the bloody nose was revealed to have a severely off-kilter tilt. Chris smiled. With luck, it would set like that.

"C'mon, Guffins." Vin hauled the boy to his feet by the rope he'd tied around his wrists. "How the hell'd you get a name like Switchpaw, anyway?"

The boy had gone sullen, but he raised defiant eyes to stare at Vin. "It's because I can shoot with both hands equally good. It's my trademark."

Chris looked at Vin. Vin turned his head to look at him and Vin's eyes rolled. Vin jerked Guffins over to gather up the rope attached to the other boy.

"Kid, every yahoo in the territories can shoot with both hands. Unless he's only got one."

All three of them looked involuntarily at the miserable, hunched over Tom, whose doleful eyes peered up at them with accusatory tearfulness from under a fall of greasy brown hair.

There was no justice in the world. If there were, it would be Switchpaw who had taken that bullet instead of his idiot back-up. Not that the little bastard didn't deserve to have that rifle shot out of his hand, trying to bushwhack a man. Chris sighed and went to fetch Vin's and his horses. Damn waste of a whole half a day.

He pulled the whiskey bottle out of his saddlebag. He took a long swallow, then poured a stream over the thin groove cut into his forearm. He squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth against the burning agony. When he managed to unclench his teeth, he took another couple of good swallows. What a bitching day. It would have made more sense to stay in bed. You'd think by the time a man reached his age, he'd manage to avoid this kind of no-sense trouble.

:::::::

Their two-day trip to Four Corners had turned into three days, or just under since Chris had been pushing the pace. The man seemed eager to get home, now he'd started; Vin reckoned the vacation must be over. This time.

Chris hadn't taken at all well the need to make the return trip to deliver Guffins and his pal into Sheriff Parsons' custody. He'd been glad himself to turn the sorry pair over to Parsons to deal with. He'd been sick of listening to their whining before they'd been an hour on the trail back, and Chris had become a volcano of black rage just waiting to erupt. The only consideration that had seemed to hold Chris back was his desire to get shed of the young fools and get on their way again. That pigeon-brained Guffins was bound to be hanged one day, if his mouth didn't get him shot first. The other one's attempt at being a gunfighter might be over, though, as he appeared not to have mastered the remarkable feat of shooting with both hands. To listen to his moaning, he wouldn't even be able to pick off his cooties with one hand. A more useless pair of no-accounts he couldn't remember encountering for a long while.

It'd been only an hour or so shy of nightfall when they finished with Parsons, and was drizzling down a cool rain. They'd bummed around the saloon for a few hours before settling down in a rented room. Chris hadn't drunk much; seemed he really was already on that trail home. Chris had been quiet, but that wasn't unusual. He and Chris never did have the need to talk all the time the way some of the others did. It had felt easy and familiar, just sitting with Chris again, then lying on his bedroll on the floor of the rented room listening to Chris's snores from the bunk. He'd missed having Chris around. Missed that sweet connection they shared, the comfortable sense of knowing all that was important that was happening between them.

They'd set off early the next morning in the same relaxed quiet, and he had let Chris's itchiness set their pace, feeling Chris's need sounding loud in the silence. Not that he knew everything that went on inside his friend, or wanted to. Chris had his own business and his own privacy and his own reason for wanting to get home as quickly as possible--which Vin speculated might be a similar reason to why Chris had felt the need to get away in the first place. For a quiet man, Chris Larabee had a lot of passion inside him, and he didn't tend to do things the easy way. Maybe it hadn't been that way with his wife; but, then, Chris likely hadn't been the same person then that he was now.

Whatever it was Chris wanted now, Vin was certain it wasn't a wife and horse ranch and young'uns tumbling around his feet. They were heading back to whatever it was Chris wanted, or needed, and he doubted if it were thoughts of Mary Travis that had Chris pushing their pace with restless energy. Hell, he knew it wasn't. He didn't think Mary had quite got the message yet, but, one day, it would dawn on her that Chris Larabee didn't have it in him any more to handle all the riches a woman could offer a man. He reckoned there were chunks of Chris that had gone missing when he'd lost his family, and those holes weren't ever going to fill up again. What was left inside the man were the meaner, darker parts of him that would never let a woman get too close for fear of hurting her.

He would take odds it was some kind of similar fear that had sent Chris into hiding for all these past weeks. The question was whether Ezra, the gambler who never wagered but on a sure thing, would take that bet. Ezra, who in some ways didn't seem to know Chris all that well at all, but maybe in other ways knew him better than anyone else did. He reckoned Ezra might know more than most about those secret corners and fears and feelings in Chris, and go into the places in him where Vin didn't want to go, and didn't need to, and Mary would never be allowed.

Though Ezra was gone, too, and no one knew where he might be.

They made good time on the second day of travel and would have reached town before mid-afternoon if they'd maintained a direct course. He considered the route Chris was pursuing and looked at the position of the sun as it angled toward its high point in the sky. After a few minutes of studying the lean back of the man riding ahead of him, he spurred abreast of Chris's black.

"Any particular reason we're heading for your shack in the hills instead of going straight to town?"

Chris slanted him a look, but his face was closed off the way it had been in the saloon. Vin shrugged and let Chris's mount take the lead again as the trail narrowed.

The sun had moved a point or so farther in the sky when Chris reined to a stop beside a fast-moving creek. He brought his own horse to a stop, too, taking the reins Chris handed him as Chris dismounted. He watched in bemusement as Chris stripped off first the dirty serape, which he rolled and strapped in with his bedroll, then his shirt. Chris crouched at the edge of the creek, knees widespread, and drew up handsful of water to splash and rub on his face and down his throat and chest, washing away all the accumulated trail-grime and dust and sweat; he even scrubbed at his armpits. Water droplets flew in the air from the vigorous washing, making tiny flying rainbows in the pale sunlight that angled through the clouds. When he was done, Chris stood, rubbing his wet hands over his hair, slicking it down even more than it had been. Chris strode to his horse and opened a saddlebag, pulling out a square of linen that he rubbed briskly over his face and hair and chest before drying his hands. He tucked the linen away and retrieved a horn comb with several missing teeth. He tugged it through his thick, damp hair and finished with a hand smoothed over his head.

With head-shaking wonderment, he watched as Chris next produced a small round tin from the depths of the bag and moved back to the creek edge with it in his hand. Chris opened the tin and carefully shook some powder into the lid before squatting back down and dripping a little water into the lid. He rolled the powder into a paste with his forefinger, then put the finger in his mouth and efficiently scrubbed his teeth. When he had finished pushing the paste over every tooth in his mouth, he sucked up and spat out several mouthsful of water. The lid was washed and carefully dried before being screwed back onto the tin and tucked back into the saddlebag.

Think you know a man and he still manages to pull a few surprises.

Chris shoved the dusty black shirt with the ripped sleeve into his bag and moved to the other side of the horse. From his other saddlebag, he brought out a folded, plain, dark-blue shirt and shook the folds out vigorously before putting it on. He buttoned it, tucked it into the waistband of his black duck pants, adjusted his gunbelt, and buttoned each shirt cuff, the now-grubby bandage Vin had put around his left arm disappearing from view. Chris settled the collar neatly, leaving the top button open.

"We expected at a party or something?"

His amused drawl got no answer as Chris once more smoothed his hands over his hair. He appeared to be finished, apparently not inclined to use the cold water to scrape away his two days' growth of blond stubble. Chris looked better than he had, though; he had to give him that. Still tired, but with a light of purpose in his eyes that you naturally associated with Chris Larabee and that Vin hadn't realized he'd been missing until it was back and his friend looked alive again.

As Chris swung up into the saddle, he slanted another look in Vin's direction, but this time, Chris winked. Chuckling, Vin followed the slender, dark-clad back of the man before him as they rode the last mile to the shack. His humor faded, however, as he watched the tell-tale signs of growing tension in that familiar back as they approached Chris's place. It seemed possible Chris might not be as confident as he had pretended to be. As he picked his way down the trail out of the trees, though, he saw some of the tension flow out of Chris's body. Looking up, he noticed the thin tail of smoke rising like a message written on the sky from the metal chimney in the center of the shack. So.

The door opened as they approached. A figure emerged and leaned against the door frame, arms folded across his chest, one booted foot toe down to the ground crossing the other leg. He was in the deep shadow of the porch that blunted details, but he broadcast a cautious watchfulness that matched the wariness Chris's tension had shifted into. The figure didn't budge a muscle as they reined to a stop in front of the porch.

Chris swung down, but Vin stayed mounted. "Reckon I should be getting on to town."

"There's fresh coffee on the stove, Mr. Tanner, and surely enough daylight left for a rest before you continue your journey?"

Vin hesitated, glancing at Chris, who wasn't looking at him and didn't seem inclined to do so, so he looked back to the shadowed figure and nodded. He hitched his horse to the porch railing as Chris ponied his to the corral that already held two others. Vin fetched a bucket of water from the well, leaving it for his mount. The gelding stuck his nose in, pulled it out, snorted, and stuck it in again. It'd do him till they reached town.

As he stepped up onto the porch, he could clearly see the wariness in Ezra's large, light eyes although the rest of his face was its usual smoothly unreadable slate. He inclined his head again as Ezra stepped aside for him with a brief smile. When Chris came to the door, though, Ezra was once again leaning with apparent casualness, one hip thrust to the side, blocking most of the doorway and seeming disinclined to move. Chris looked intently at him and turned himself sideways to squeeze past.

"The wanderer returns; all hail the wanderer." The Southern drawl was its most drawn-out and sardonic, and Chris gave Ezra a dark, cocky smile as he pushed his way inside.

Ezra followed him, launching immediately into a stream of drawled but barbed speech and restless movement.

"So, Mr. Tanner, pray tell, what is the news from the great, wide world? How fare our compatriots, and the charming backwater collection of ill-assorted and uncouth buildings and persons that we so lovingly, if improbably, call home?"

Ezra handed him a chipped enamel mug filled with fragrant hot coffee, filled his own mug, and sat at the rough-hewn elm table, his large eyes set attentively and solely on him. From the corner of his eye, Vin could see Chris's mouth quirk up at the corners as he stood and filled a mug for himself from the big iron coffeepot on the stove before sitting down again, lounging back in his chair with his long legs stretched out.

Cards lay fanned across the table. Ezra gathered them one-handed without looking, drawing them into his fingers with the ease and inevitability of a magnet attracting iron filings. All the while, Chris just lounged and watched as Ezra fired off volleys of questions, spiked with amusing if waspish comments, and Vin slipped in answers to the few that appeared to want an actual response. Ezra worked the cards in his left hand as he held the mug in his right, sliding out the ace of spades and slipping it back into the pile and shuffling them and sliding out that danged ace of spades all over again, time after time, his long, supple fingers and clever thumb making them do whatever he wanted without a single glance to guide him. He wouldn't be surprised if Ezra did those card tricks in his sleep. Hell, knowing Maude, he'd probably cut his teeth on the ace of spades.

Ezra was probably going crazy, separated for ten days from his beloved poker tables. He wouldn't have thought Ezra had it in him to last that long without being able to gamble. If, that was, Ezra really had been here the entire time, which seemed unlikely. The dandified, citified gambler didn't naturally tend toward isolation in the wilds. But, then, he would never have thought it likely Ezra would be here in the first place, which showed what-all he knew.

He got to his feet when Ezra started making references to prodigal sons, just slipping in comments sneakily among a smokescreen of unimportant chatter. Ezra handled his tongue as well as he did the cards, even if it did get him into trouble more times than not.

"'spect I'd best be getting on to town before it gets dark."

He felt a crazy kind of ease inside himself, seeing it was amusement narrowing Chris's eyes this time and anger that underlay Ezra's bright voice. He wondered if the morning would see another black eye and which one of them might be wearing it, then shied away from thinking about what he couldn't in any way predict, and wasn't his business, anyhow.

All three of them went out into the overcast afternoon light.

"Mr. Tanner, so kind of you to take the time to round up the stray."

Vin couldn't help grinning as Chris stiffened at the lazy dismissal of him as if he were an ill-behaved coon dog. Vin touched his fingers to his hat, sobering as he saw the returned wariness in Ezra's eyes. He reckoned suddenly that temper and humor between these two were like the barest top part of a snag sticking up out of a river with all the rest lying below, hidden danger to boat and man.

Ezra turned back into the shack as Chris followed him to his horse. Vin mounted and looked down at his closest friend, seeing the tired uncertainty apparent in him, too. A pair of stubborn fools if he'd ever seen any. They were like two snags, perhaps, that had washed together, all tangled beneath the surface while they showed only their tips to the world.

"I'll tell folks in town you're all right, and'll be coming back...." He trailed off, abruptly uncertain.

"I'll be back in a day, or two at most." Chris nodded, once, firmly, like a decision had been reached. "Can't speak for Ezra."

"See you, cowboy."

"All right."

He rode off, not looking back but hearing the door shut with a squeak of unoiled hinges as he headed out of the yard.

:::::::

When Chris shut the door behind himself, he saw Ezra standing by the table, shuffling those ever-present cards of his back and forth between his hands. Chris leaned against the door and looked around. The place was neat, the way every room Ezra inhabited was always tidy, but there were a lot of things lying about that hadn't been here before. It looked as though Ezra had packed along most of his belongings; that explained the second horse in the corral. Had he left anything behind? Had he had any intention of returning?

He finally looked straight at Ezra, who wasn't looking at him. The large eyes were set on the cards but with a distant look, as though he were seeing something else entirely, or just looking at his own thoughts. Ezra never needed to look at the cards to do those fancy shuffles; his fingers moved on their own, the way his mouth tended to do.

Of course, it was when Ezra went quiet that you had to worry.

He slid into a chair, still watching Ezra, who was as always worth looking at despite being under-dressed, for him. The well-cut pin-striped pants and immaculate white shirt, open at the neck, highlighted the compact lines of the lean body they covered; not often that Ezra appeared without the extra bulk of both a brocade vest and one of his fancy, tailed jackets. Red suspenders held his pants up and matching red silk sleeve garters circled his upper arms. Chris smiled to himself; Ezra and red, couldn't keep them parted for long.

For once, Ezra wasn't wearing a gun. Chris looked around until he spotted the russet gunbelt hanging over the bedpost. The post on the right side, where Ezra preferred to sleep. Ezra's rifle was also near to hand, propped against the wall beside the bed. He did another survey and found the shoulder holster hanging on a peg by the door, the Richards conversion revolver set in position for a quick draw. The sleeve rig should be around somewhere, too. Another search, and he glimpsed the rig lying with two saddlebags near the east wall. No sign of the deadly little popgun that should be secured to it, though. He looked at Ezra and reckoned he was probably carrying the derringer on him. A brief study revealed a small but decided lump in the right pants pocket that spoilt the hang of the fabric just slightly. He felt inanely happy at the rush of familiarity. That was Ezra. Even alone and miles away from the nearest person, Ezra wouldn't take a step without having a gun hidden somewhere about himself. Ezra and the concept of trust had parted company years before.

Chris stood and bent over to untie the lace around his right thigh that held the heel of his holster in place. When it was free, he unbuckled the belt and hung the heavy black holster on the peg next to the shoulder rig. He made certain the butt of his gun was pointing out to be available to his hand in case of need, and that neither of the holsters impeded the other as they hung side-by-side. He turned around and found Ezra's eyes set on him. The large, light green eyes could be dauntingly expressive at times, but they could also be blank mirrors when Ezra chose. They showed him nothing now but his own inverted reflection. And tiredness, which Ezra couldn't entirely disguise.

He sat in the chair nearest Ezra and caught him by an arm around his waist. Ezra didn't resist--didn't even tense--as he pulled the other man down to sit sideways on his lap. Chris grunted a little and set his feet firmly on the floor. Ezra was a few inches shorter than he was, but he was no featherweight. Those fancy duds of his hid a fine, honed, muscular body. _Appearances are everything_: that was the lesson Maude Standish had drummed into her son from his earliest years, but it wasn't what Ezra appeared to be that had become important to him. Rather, it was what could be found behind the Southern formality and the barricades of fancy words and the poker face and blank eyes Ezra gave the world when it tried to get too close, or was too hurtful.

Ezra smelled enticing, the way he always did. He smelled of clean clothes and clean skin, and a mingling of a hint of sweat with the scent of the ground cloves in the light oil he used to keep his hair in place. He didn't smell like anyone else in the world. Chris sniffed, his nostrils flaring, drinking in the scent of Ezra. Damned if he hadn't missed it these past three weeks. A stupid thing to miss, the smell of a man's sweat and hair pomade.

Sarah had smelled of the crushed lavender she put in the clothes press mixed with whatever she'd been cooking that day, carrying the scent of herbs or yeast-bread or the sweetness of honey around with her. He'd missed the smell of her for over three years, but it wasn't the sense of Sarah he'd been missing for the past three weeks. The days and the nights hadn't been filled with the hankering to smell Sarah, or to taste her or hear her--and that had been the gist of the problem right there.

It wasn't an easy matter, moving on, and he'd struggled against the tide of new sensations that were drowning his fading memories of the woman who had meant more to him than anyone else on earth. He'd fought against the waves of competing emotion, trying to reconcile in himself the lingering guilts about Sarah's death with the idea of someone else's scent overpowering his memory of hers, and the sound of someone else's voice being more present to his inner ear than hers, and someone else's taste being more vivid in his mind. He'd fought and floundered and hesitated between the old and the new pulls on him until he'd finally had to concede that present need and present wants had become more urgent than the past.

He took Ezra's smooth-shaven jaw in his hand and turned the handsome face to his own. He fit his lips to Ezra's and licked them lightly. He pressed with his tongue, and Ezra's mouth parted, letting Chris's tongue plunge in, making the first strong connection between them. Ezra tasted as beguiling as he smelled, because it was familiar, the most familiar taste he knew now, not like any whore in the world, not like anyone else. The shape of the teeth on his tongue was familiar, too: the one on the left, crowded out of its place, an extra tooth sitting inside the curve of the others; the chipped canine on the bottom left; the space in the back upper right where a tooth was missing that never showed when Ezra smiled or spoke. It took a more intimate acquaintance to know about that empty spot in Ezra's mouth.

He dropped his hand and touched the smooth skin at the top of Ezra's chest where the collarbone provided a hard plate below the tenderness of the throat, before running his hand down the firmness of Ezra's torso to come to a rest cupping the soft bulge at his groin. Ezra's legs parted slightly at the gentle pressure of his hand. Chris slipped his fingers back to cradle the balls nestled within the layers of cloth. He squeezed tenderly and ran his thumb along the length of the soft penis. His own cock was swelling, reacting to the taste and feel of Ezra.

Ezra's genitals, however, remained soft. Ezra's mouth had opened to allow his tongue entrance, but Ezra's own tongue lay still, making no contact, offering no caresses, no encouragement. His lips had parted but they didn't kiss him back. Ezra's hands remained limp at his sides, neither holding nor touching.

He lifted his mouth from Ezra's and looked into the calm eyes. He saw no hint of passion or gladness or welcome; only coolness and blankness. He leaned back in the chair, waiting.

"If you persist in treating me like one of your courtesans, you will have no one left in your life but them."

Stung, he lifted his hand from Ezra's groin and made no move to hold onto him when Ezra pushed himself to his feet and walked toward the window.

"How do you want me to treat you--like a wife?"

Ezra stopped before the window, staring out.

"I don't believe that I deserved that." Ezra's voice was still calm, but there was pain in it, impossible to miss, mixed with the tiredness and wariness and controlled anger that was still thrumming in him even after three weeks.

No, Ezra probably hadn't deserved that remark, if deserving came into the matter. Ezra wasn't some tender filly, though, who had to be handled with kid gloves. He was a man. He was tough and independent and used to looking after himself in all kinds of situations. Ezra always made sure to look after himself. Though that wasn't entirely true anymore. He took chances and risked his life to protect others as peacekeeper just the same as the rest of them did. The point was that, pretty as Ezra looked, appearances weren't everything and he was as tough as old boots, as you found out if you tried to cross him.

Ezra still had feelings, though. Sometimes he didn't appear to, and some people made the mistake of assuming he felt passionately about nothing but money and his own schemes, but that wasn't the truth of this deceptive man, either. Not the entire truth, at least.

He looked away from the still form in front of the window, who wasn't giving him any help and didn't seem likely to do so. Most of the time, you couldn't shut Ezra up, but when you needed him to talk, the ornery bastard clammed up tighter than a nun's drawers. Typical. He looked again at the piles of Ezra's belongings in the shack. He hadn't even been sure Ezra would come here rather than lighting out for other parts, but he had. Ezra had come here to wait for him, and that had to be significant.

"How long were you planning on waiting?"

Ezra turned and leaned against the windowsill, backlit, with his face in shadow. "How long were you intending to stay away?"

Ornery. Never would answer a straight question or meet a man halfway. Sometimes he just wanted to take the cuss by the neck and give him a good shaking. Unfortunately, that approach hadn't proved effective in the past.

"I dunno. Managed to avoid thinking about it most of the time."

He couldn't see Ezra's face well enough to catch the expression, but he fancied he saw a hint of amusement in the slow shake of the head.

When Ezra spoke, though, it was in a somber, muted voice, and musingly, as though he were speaking to himself: "The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind."

"What?"

The silhouetted head lifted and Ezra pushed away from the window. He paced to the table and gathered his cards, long fingers restlessly manipulating them. He looked like a cornered lynx, wearing the same look he sometimes got in situations where he didn't like the odds--just before he was ready to bolt.

He'd never had any trouble knowing when, or how, to speak to Sarah. But this was Ezra, not Sarah, and Ezra had different needs. And it was Ezra he needed now.

"Ezra--"

Ezra swung on him, his eyes as sharp as his voice. "Would you have returned at all if Vin hadn't fetched you?"

Two strides took him to Ezra's side and he caught hold of Ezra's upper arms, needing to be close, to hold Ezra close and not let him run. Ezra had waited for him and he had come back. They had to get everything necessary said, not let it all escape them.

He had thought he wanted to shake the man, but he found he didn't when he was close. He loosened his right hand from Ezra's tense arm and touched the eye he'd blackened three weeks ago in a rage that had had too much to do with his own unadmitted feelings and with the pain of feeling himself moving away from Sarah, a progression for which he'd somehow found it easier to blame Ezra than to face in himself. He stroked the now-unblemished skin around the eye socket, then flattened his hand to cradle the entire side of Ezra's face. He felt the tension in the other man escalate a notch even as the wide eyes closed and Ezra leaned into his touch with a barely audible sigh.

His voice sounded ragged in his own ears as he gave Ezra the truth they both needed to hear, and that he hoped would be enough: "You're not my closest friend. You sure as hell ain't my wife. Sometimes I don't even like being around you. But I got feelings for you I don't have for anyone else, and that makes you...special to me in a way no one else is."

He waited, feeling helpless, because there wasn't anything else he could say or do. It was up to Ezra now to decide for both of them.

Within moments, Ezra sighed again, more loudly, and turned his face to press a kiss to the palm of his hand, and Chris breathed out a breath of his own that he hadn't even realized he was holding. Ezra pulled his head down, and their mouths met in a proper kiss, a proper connection this time, both of them wanting it and feeling the same things. Chris caught the sturdy body to him and squeezed his eyes shut, sensing the last walls inside himself melting away as he acknowledged that there was more in his desire for this difficult but challenging man than mere physical passion. It may have begun as simply two lonely men with shared needs and a proclivity for their own kind coming together for sex, but he could accept now that it had somehow, despite his intentions, become other, and more. He and Ezra didn't fit together smoothly and naturally, like two parts of the same whole, the way he and Sarah had, or even the way he and Vin did, but he and Ezra did fit together in their own unruly, bullheaded, tumultuous way.

And there was nothing wrong with physical passion. Nothing wrong at all, when no one else living could make him feel like this.

Ezra had somehow got Chris's shirt open when he wasn't paying attention and was running those long, clever fingers of his all over his chest. Ezra lifted his mouth from Chris's and placed it to his throat, sucking gently for a moment at the pulse on the side before moving down to nuzzle against the hollow at the base. He felt his breath hitch in his throat, and he was abruptly as hard as though he hadn't touched anyone for three solid weeks, not been with anyone since the last time he'd felt Ezra's touch on him. He moved his hands to Ezra's shirt buttons, eager to touch in return. He peeled the opened shirt apart to reveal the smooth, hairless chest and pressed his palms to the small nipples, which hardened and pressed back into him. He smiled, unable to stop the happiness welling inside him, and no longer wanting to try. He dragged the garters off Ezra's arms and dropped them to the floor, impatiently pushing Ezra's shirt off until it hung from his elbows. Fumbling with the cuff links, he cursed the fiddly things; why couldn't the man wear buttoned cuffs, like ordinary folk?

Ezra had Chris's shirt completely off now and was letting it drop from his hand. "What's this?"

He glanced at the grimy bandage on his arm, held lightly in Ezra's cool fingers. He gently disengaged his arm and wrapped it around Ezra, urging him toward the bed.

"A damned nuisance of a wasted day, that's what that is." He finally got rid of the second cuff link and pushed Ezra's shirt onto the floor just as they reached the bed and he guided Ezra back onto it, sinking down to lie beside him. "I'd've been home a day sooner if it weren't for that."

"But not a day before Vin reached you."

He shrugged, meeting the steady gaze, not knowing what to say and managing only a rueful response: "Never seemed to feel like quite the right day."

Ezra surprised him by smiling, dimples and gold tooth on full display for the first time. "Every morning when I woke up in this deucedly uncomfortable bed, I determined to leave. I even attempted to pack a few times. But I seemed to lack the necessary impetus." He pushed Chris onto his back and leaned over him. "I found it more satisfying concocting inventive ways to eviscerate you when you eventually reappeared."

He grinned up at the ferally smiling face, and ran a hand up the soft skin on the inside of Ezra's braced arm. "And are you going to gut me?"

He jumped, startled, as Ezra's hand pushed under the waistband of his pants and drawers and rubbed his belly, the tips of his fingers grazing the head of his penis, which responded with a further rush of blood into its length. He was entirely uncomfortable now, and lifted his hips from the bed to try to ease the constriction of his tight canvas duck pants. Ezra chuckled, and nimble fingers soon had the buttons on his pants unfastened and was pushing them down, only to stop the descent at his thighs.

Ezra stroked the outline of his penis where it strained against his drawers, then undid the row of small white buttons, slipping each one free with exaggeratedly slow and delicate movements.

"Ezra!" He bucked, and reached for his own buttons, only to have his hands batted away. He gritted his teeth.

"Patience, Mr. Larabee, brings its own rewards."

Unfastening the last tiny button, Ezra leaned forward and blew damply on his groin, which made Chris's penis surge to full arousal. He cursed, and made another grab for the maddening man, but Ezra was for some reason heading down the bed. Oh, his boots. All right, the removal of his boots--not to mention the spurs strapped onto them, which couldn't be helping the condition of the old quilt one little bit--would probably help matters along.

He laid a hand on Ezra's smooth, pale back, enjoying the feel of the row of spinal bones that rumpled its center and disappeared into the waistband of Ezra's pants. Every person in the world had a back and spine; strange how one out of the thousands could seem so much more appealing than any other. He rubbed the small scar under the left shoulder blade, enjoying its familiarity, both in its feel to his touch and in his awareness of its history, knowing it to be the legacy of a shovel swung by a cousin when Ezra was ten. Ezra had probably been an annoying little bastard even then. He'd been tempted to hit Ezra more than once himself, and if a shovel had been handy--

He froze, drenched with sudden cold. He had never had a shovel to hand, but there had always been his fists. But never again. He rubbed his hand flat-palmed over the vulnerable back in a silent promise. Fists and running off weren't the only ways of handling problems. Hell, they weren't any way at all.

Ezra finally got rid of all four boots and all four socks and turned into his arms. He captured Ezra's mouth in a fierce kiss and felt a matching stark, uncompromising passion in the other man. He dealt with the buttons on Ezra's pants and underdrawers with dispatch and palmed the cock as he released it. Ezra groaned, and bit his shoulder. The hot, sudden pain made him ache with need and he began to surge up, to push Ezra down on the bed, but Ezra resisted, holding him in place on his back, a leg pressing across his thighs and a hand pushing his shoulder flat to the bed.

He looked up into Ezra's wide, light green eyes, which weren't mirrors now, but tidal pools crammed with life. Ezra laid a finger on Chris's lips and he sucked it in, biting gently, wanting every morsel of taste and feel of this man he could get.

"I'm going to eviscerate you now, my outlaw wanderer." Ezra's accent and drawl were exaggerated and husky. "But rather than a frontal attack--" his finger traced the line of fair hair that stretched from Chris's navel to his groin, annoyingly avoiding touch with the penis that curled up his belly "--I believe we'll prosecute a dorsal maneuver."

He shivered as Ezra's hand trailed over his hip and closed on his buttock, fingers pressing into his cleft. He breathed a sibilant affirmative before turning half onto his side to watch as Ezra crossed the room and unearthed a small tin from his saddlebag.

"It's not that sissy pomade, is it? I don't want bits of clove up my--"

"Kindly stop destroying the mood, dear sir, or this evisceration will have to be postponed." Ezra attempted a glare, but since his trembling fingers were having trouble wrenching the lid off the tin, most of his concentration appeared to be elsewhere. "It's lanolin," he added, as the lid finally popped free.

Chris rested his head on his folded hands, watching with appreciation as Ezra slathered generous amounts of the cream onto his cock, allowing himself some gratuitous strokes and uttering soft panting moans with his head thrown back wantonly. This view of Ezra was his; it belonged to him alone and would remain his as long as he kept hold of what was important in his life now. He wasn't such a fool as to take for granted Ezra would wait for him again if he lost control of what he was doing and feeling, blaming Ezra for what was his own doing and leaving him with temper and pain unresolved between them.

He moved to lie on his stomach at Ezra's urging, and felt the other man kneel between his spread legs. Urgency was curling in his belly, and he pressed his legs farther apart and ground his penis against the bumpy surface of the quilt. Hurry, hurry....

Ezra's lips scorched his back, igniting tiny hot-spots as he kissed first here, then there. In contrast, his lanolin-coated fingers were as cool as silk against Chris's ass. The first touch made him grunt; the second raised his heartbeat and powered his breathing into gasps. Ezra was murmuring to him between kisses, spilling spiky comments wrapped in a tender voice into his ear. Ezra comprised contrasts like that, the hot and the cool of him coming at you together, with honeyed voice and sharp words, gentle fingers and hard maleness.

When Ezra was fully inside him, Chris uttered a panting moan of his own and ground himself back, forcing the connection between them to be as deep and as potent as he could make it, relishing the scratch of Ezra's pubic hair against his buttocks. Ezra filled him and moved inside him and held him in strong, supporting arms, breathing his name in a whispery voice. In turn, he squeezed his muscles tightly around Ezra's penis and encouraged Ezra to a strong, powerful rhythm that rocked them together. He dragged Ezra's hand to his cock, making Ezra use those clever fingers of his to bring him to orgasm. When he came, the uncontrollable muscle spasms inside him drew Ezra to his own shuddering completion and a harsh, triumphant cry. Still locked together in the aftermath, they tumbled to the bed in a heap of sweaty limbs and heaving chests and bellies.

He might have blacked out for a moment. His next awareness was of Ezra's softened penis leaving his body. He always hated that moment, feeling as though he were abruptly abandoned to aloneness and uncertain if he would ever be rescued from it again. He never felt like that after being with a woman; he knew, then, that he could re-create the connection between them at will by using his body to join with hers. He had the same assurance when it was a matter of Ezra's being the person he mounted--knew he could fill Ezra with his heated hardness any time it was desired, give Ezra all of himself and use his strength to bind them together into that one glorious, hybrid flesh.

But when Ezra withdrew from his body after sex, he always felt momentarily bereft, struck with a passing but unsettling fear that perhaps Ezra would never again allow him the liberty of taking the other man completely into himself, might never again let him use Ezra to achieve that particular mode of joining that only Ezra had the power to create for them. The fear represented a vulnerability he had never experienced with his female partners, with whom the roles of giving and taking were static and unquestionable; a vulnerability he hated in himself, but couldn't entirely quell. In the immediate aftermath of their joinings, he felt a need to cling to Ezra that Ezra himself didn't share, though Ezra had insecurities of his own that surfaced at other times and needed appeasing.

Ezra this time, however, wasn't leaving the bed immediately to fuss with cloths and water the way he usually did. Comfort and cleanliness were Ezra's bywords in all matters, and sticky bodies and a damp quilt weren't high on his list of tolerances. This time, though, Ezra hadn't rushed off but had settled himself against Chris's side. Chris turned and drew the unwontedly pliant man against his body and held him close in both arms, and Ezra allowed it.

They weren't even the best of friends in the general sense of things, yet they had an understanding of each other in ways no one else did, and a willingness to learn and to compromise.

After a reassuring interlude of mutual stroking and nuzzling, he loosened his arms. Ezra cocked his head at him.

"All right, Chris?"

He nodded, then watched with resigned amusement as Ezra launched himself on his whirlwind quest for comfort and cleanliness, his mouth in full spate. Chris had to reckon he was well and truly home now, even though he hadn't reached Four Corners yet; the antsy bastard was already making him crazy.

At least it was a familiar kind of crazy. And not a lonely kind, at that.

**Author's Note:**

> The quoted text, "The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind," is from _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, Canto 3, Stanza III, by George Gordon, Lord Byron.


End file.
